The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) committed war crimes in Jenin and Nablus in March and April 2002 during Operation Defensive Shield, states AI in a new report.

Human rights violations by Israeli forces included unlawful killings and the wanton destructions of hundreds of homes, in some cases with the inhabitants still inside. In one case 10 members of the Shu'bi family were buried alive under the rubble of their house in Nablus for six days - eight of them died and only two survived. In Jenin refugee camp and Jenin city, more than half of the 54 Palestinians who were killed in the IDF incursion between 3 and 17 April appear not to have been involved in fighting. Four of those killed were children. Other human rights violations include torture and ill-treatment of prisoners; the blocking of ambulances and denial of humanitarian assistance; and the use of Palestinian civilians as "human shields".

While Israel has the right to take measures to prevent unlawful violence, in doing so it must not violate international law. In Jenin and Nablus, the IDF blocked access for days to ambulances, humanitarian aid and the outside world while the dead and wounded lay in streets or houses. In Jenin a whole residential quarter of the refugee camp was demolished, leaving 4,000 people homeless.

AI submitted most of the cases detailed in the report to the IDF for comment but, despite repeated promises, no response has yet been received. All attempts to end human rights violations and install a system of international protection in Israel and the Occupied Territories, in particular by introducing monitors with a clear human rights mandate, have been undermined by the refusal of the government of Israel. The USA has consistently supported the Israeli position, effectively leading to inaction by the international community.

AI reiterates its call for the international community to stop being an ineffective witness of the grave violations that take place in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Stressing that there will be no peace or security in the region until human rights are respected, it urges meaningful, urgent and appropriate action.

Israel/Occupied Territories: Jenin War Crimes Investigation Needed
Human Rights Watch Report Finds Laws of War Violations Hebrew Français Arabic
(Jenin, May 3, 2002) Evidence suggests that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed war crimes in the military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, Human Rights Watch charged in a report issued today after a week-long investigation. Human Rights Watch did not find evidence to support claims that the IDF massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the camp.

In its forty-eight page report, "Israel, the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority Territories: Jenin: IDF Military Operations," Human Rights Watch identified fifty-two Palestinians who were killed during the operation, of whom twenty-two were civilians. Many of the civilians were killed willfully or unlawfully. Human Rights Watch also found that the IDF used Palestinian civilians as "human shields" and used indiscriminate and excessive force during the operation.
"The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes," said Peter Bouckaert, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and a member of the investigative team. "Criminal investigations are needed to ascertain individual responsibility for the most serious violations. Such investigations are first and foremost the duty of the Israeli government, but the international community needs to ensure that meaningful accountability occurs."

A Human Rights Watch team of three experienced investigators spent seven days in the Jenin refugee camp, gathering detailed accounts from victims and witnesses and carefully corroborating and independently crosschecking their accounts with those of others to reconstruct a detailed picture of events in the camp in April 2002. The IDF has not agreed to Human Rights Watch's repeated requests for information regarding its military incursions into the West Bank and Gaza.

Bouckaert, who headed up earlier Human Rights Watch investigations into wartime abuses in Chechnya, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, said that the Jenin events clearly warrant further investigation. He noted that the hallmark of a professional army is to take seriously the need to establish accountability for serious violations of the laws of war.

"There have been widely divergent accounts of what happened in Jenin. A U.N. fact-finding mission could contribute significantly to the search for the truth in Jenin," Bouckaert said. "Israel should cooperate fully with whatever new U.N. fact-finding mission might be established, and there should be no immunity for persons implicated in the most serious violations of the laws of war."

On April 3, 2002, the IDF launched a major military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, home to some fourteen thousand Palestinian refugees. An estimated eighty to one hundred armed Palestinians took part in the fighting. Israel claims the camp had been the launching ground for many of the suicide bombings that have killed and maimed over one hundred Israeli civilians in recent months. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly condemned this deliberate killing of civilians. Palestinian armed militants had also planted many explosive devices in the camp prior to and during the IDF incursion.

Among the twenty-two civilian deaths documented during this investigation were the following:

Fifty-seven-year-old Kamal Zghair, a wheelchair-bound man who was shot and then run over by IDF tanks on April 10 as he was moving in his wheelchair equipped with a white flag down a major road in Jenin;

Thirty-seven-year-old Jamal Fayid, a paralyzed man, who was crushed in the rubble of his home on April 7 after IDF soldiers refused to allow his family the time to remove him from their home before a bulldozer destroyed it;

Fourteen-year-old Faris Zaiben, who was killed by fire from an IDF armored car as he went to buy groceries when the IDF-imposed curfew was finally lifted on April 11; and

Fifty-two-year-old 'Afaf Disuqi, who was killed on April 5 by an explosive charge that IDF soldiers had placed at her front door as she went to open it for the soldiers;
In one case involving a wounded Palestinian militant, IDF soldiers for several hours prevented medical help from reaching him. The soldiers then killed the man, who had been left close to a hospital near the camp and was no longer armed or taking active part in the fighting.

Human Rights Watch also found evidence of indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by the IDF. U.S.-supplied helicopters fired anti-tank missiles and other ordinance into the camp, in some cases making insufficient efforts to identify legitimate military targets and avoid hitting civilian houses. The helicopters struck many houses in Jenin refugee camp that were inhabited only by civilians, and where no Palestinian fighters were present. In one of many such cases, a tank shell and two helicopter-fired TOW anti-tank missiles hit the house of Kamal Tawalba, a father of fourteen children, on April 6. No fighters were present in the home. When Tawalba and his family tried to leave their burning home, IDF soldiers in the vicinity shot at them.

In another case, a sixty-year-old woman was killed when a helicopter fired a missile directly into her top-floor apartment although there were no armed Palestinians in the building or the immediate vicinity.

The IDF's campaign caused extensive and disproportionate destruction of the civilian infrastructure of the camp, particularly in the Hawashin district following an April 9 ambush of Israeli soldiers there. In contrast to other parts of the camp where armored bulldozers were used mainly to widen streets, in Hawashin they razed the entire district. Throughout the camp, at least 140 buildings were completely leveled, many of them multi-family dwellings, and more than 200 others were severely damaged, leaving an estimated 4,000 people, more than a quarter of the population, homeless. More than one hundred of those buildings were in Hawashin district.

The extensive, systematic, and deliberate leveling of the entire district was clearly disproportionate to any military objective that Israel aimed to achieve. Establishing whether this devastation so exceeded military necessity as to constitute wanton destruction-a war crime-should be one of the highest priorities for any future U.N. fact-finding team, said Bouckaert.

Human Rights Watch also documented cases in which Israeli troops used Palestinian civilians as human shields, a practice prohibited under international humanitarian law. In one case, IDF soldiers forced eight civilians to shield them by making them stand on a balcony while the soldiers fired at Palestinian gunmen. Kamal Tawalba and his fourteen-year-old son were among them. Tawalba described how the soldiers kept them for three hours in the line of fire, and used his and his son's shoulders to rest their rifles as they fired.

"Even accepting the Israeli charge that Palestinian groups who used the refugee camp as a base were responsible for attacking Israeli civilians," said Bouckaert, "this does not excuse the IDF violations documented in this report." Bouckaert added that Human Rights Watch found no evidence that Palestinian gunmen forced civilians to serve as human shields during the battles in the camp, and no indication that Palestinian gunmen had prevented Palestinian civilians from leaving the camp.

"As in our prior investigations of IDF operations, we also found numerous cases where the IDF coerced Palestinian civilians to take part in military operations," Bouckaert said. "Palestinian civilians were forced, sometimes at gunpoint, to accompany IDF troops during their searches of homes and to carry out some of the most dangerous tasks during these searches."

During most of "Operation Defensive Shield," the IDF blocked emergency medical access to Jenin camp. Soldiers repeatedly fired on Red Crescent ambulances, and in one case shot to death a uniformed nurse, twenty-seven-year-old Farwa Jammal, who had come to the assistance of a wounded man. In another case, fifty-eight-year-old Mariam Wishahi died in her home thirty-six hours after she was injured by shrapnel; IDF soldiers repeatedly prevented ambulances from reaching her home, located just a few hundred meters from Jenin's main hospital.

During the period the IDF had control of the camp, the Israeli authorities had responsibility under international humanitarian law for the welfare of the civilian population. Yet Israeli authorities denied humanitarian organizations access to the camp during their offensive, and continued to prevent humanitarian access to the refugee camp for days after military operations had ceased, despite great need.

Human Rights Watch has investigated and reported on violations of international humanitarian law by governments and armed groups in conflict situations around the globe, including most recently in Kosovo, Bosnia, Chechnya, eastern Congo, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Colombia.

Human Rights Watch is preparing a separate report on those responsible for suicide bombings directed against Israeli civilians.

You are quoting an Arab front group that attempts to destroy truth that apposes their interests. Please note that they have no pictoral evidence either during or following the rooting out of murderers from Jenin or Nabulus. Were you in on the killing of hundreds of civilians in the Iraq invasion?

You obviously want to believe and present anything that backs up your hate of Israel.

(New York, December 12, 2003)  Hundreds of civilian deaths in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq could have been prevented by abandoning two misguided military tactics, Human Rights Watch said in a comprehensive new report released today.

The use of cluster munitions in populated areas caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the coalition´s conduct of major military operations in March and April, Human Rights Watch said. U.S. and British forces used almost 13,000 cluster munitions, containing nearly 2 million submunitions, that killed or wounded more than 1,000 civilians.

Meanwhile, 50 strikes on top Iraqi leaders failed to kill any of the intended targets, but instead killed dozens of civilians, the Human Rights Watch report revealed. The U.S. decapitation strategy relied on intercepts of senior Iraqi leaders´ satellite phone calls along with corroborating intelligence that proved inadequate. As a result, the U.S. military could only locate targets within a 100-meter radius  clearly inadequate precision in civilian neighborhoods.

Coalition forces generally tried to avoid killing Iraqis who weren´t taking part in combat, said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. But the deaths of hundreds of civilians still could have been prevented.

International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, does not outlaw all civilian casualties in wartime. But armed forces are obliged to take all feasible precautions for avoiding civilian losses, and to refrain from attacks that are indiscriminate or where the expected civilian harm exceeds the military gain. The term casualty refers to both dead and wounded.

The 147-page report, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq, also examines violations of international humanitarian law by Iraqi forces, including use of human shields, abuse of the Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems, use of antipersonnel landmines, and placement of military objects in mosques and hospitals. The Iraqi military´s practice of wearing civilian clothes also eroded the distinction between combatants and civilians.

The Human Rights Watch report also criticizes U.S. air strikes on electrical and media facilities. U.S. and British forces did not secure large caches of weapons and ammunition abandoned by Iraqi forces, and the ready availability of these explosives also led to dozens of civilian casualties. Additional information about British conduct of the Iraq war can be found here.

To preserve its neutrality in assessing adherence to the laws of war in the Iraq conflict, Human Rights Watch did not take a position on whether the war itself was justified or legal.

Human Rights Watch sent a team of researchers to Iraq between April 29 and June 1 to investigate civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. The team focused on the main areas of fighting in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. Team members visited 10 cities and conducted more than 200 interviews with victims and their families, Iraqi doctors, U.S. and British military personnel, and others.

The researchers inspected dozens of bombsites, as well as fields and neighborhoods littered with unexploded cluster submunitions. They evaluated ballistics evidence and hospital records. The researchers also obtained U.S. Department of Defense data that enabled them to pinpoint the locations of cluster-munition strikes.

Human Rights Watch estimates that cluster munitions killed or injured more than 1,000 civilians, while decapitation strikes killed dozens. The total number of civilians killed in the war is much higher, since it would include people who died as a result of collateral damage from small-arms fire and other factors. Human Rights Watch did not attempt to ascertain an exact number of civilian deaths in the war.

Every death of a civilian in wartime is a terrible tragedy, said Roth. But focusing on the exact number of deaths misses the point. The point is that the U.S. military should not have been using these methods of warfare.

In a single day, U.S. cluster-munition attacks in Hilla on March 31 killed at least 33 civilians and injured 109. A hospital director in the southern Iraqi city told Human Rights Watch that cluster munitions caused 90 percent of the civilian injuries that his hospital treated during the war. Human Rights Watch obtained hospital records from Hilla, Najaf and Nasariya indicating 2,279 civilian casualties in March and April, including 678 dead and 1,601 injured.

On April 7 a decapitation attack, apparently targeting Saddam Hussein on the basis of a satellite phone intercept, killed 18 civilians and destroyed three homes in the Mansur neighborhood of Baghdad. Residents said there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein or any members of the Iraqi government had been there.

The decapitation strategy was an utter failure on military grounds, since it didn´t kill a single Iraqi leader in 50 attempts, said Roth. But it also failed on human rights grounds. It´s no good using a precise weapon if the target hasn´t been located precisely.

In its research on previous U.S. armed conflicts, including the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia (http://www.hrw.org/europe/fry.php) and the war in Afghanistan (http://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan.php), Human Rights Watch found that the U.S. Air Force was progressively using fewer cluster bombs in populated areas. While the U.S. Air Force continued this trend in Iraq, the U.S. Army launched tens of thousands of cluster submunitions in populated areas.

U.S. Central Command reported that its forces used 10,782 cluster munitions overall, with ground forces launching the vast majority. British forces used an additional 70 air-launched and 2,100 ground-launched cluster munitions. Dud submunitions, which fail to explode immediately, may kill or maim civilians long after the conflict has ended. The U.S. and British cluster munitions together contained nearly 2 million submunitions.

The way cluster munitions were used in Iraq represents a big step backwards for the U.S. military, said Roth. U.S. ground forces need to learn the lesson that the air force seems to have adopted: cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life.

The following "human muslim rights" organization also reports on violations of countries like the US who try to stop terrorist killers. The murderers human rights should not be violated according to this arabic organization. Do you see this Arab group protesting the human rights violations of the Jewish people in their own land? Strange isn't it that your embicilic mind can't comprehend.

Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism
Briefing to the 60th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
January 2004

Objective

The Commission on Human Rights should adopt a further resolution on the protection of human rights in countering terrorism that would reaffirm the importance of the respect for international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law in combating terrorism; request relevant mechanisms and bodies of the United Nations to continue monitoring counter terrorism measures; acknowledge the continuing gaps in the international human rights monitoring system with respect to these issues; urge that the Counter Terrorism Committee of the U.N. Security Council address human rights in its work; and establish a special mechanism to monitor the effect of counter-terrorism measures on human rights in countries worldwide.

Background

Counter-terrorist measures continue to violate human rights in many countries. While some of these concerns are not new, they have taken on a more transnational and globalized dimension since the attacks of September 11, 2001, posing new challenges for the U.N. human rights monitoring system. Abuses include prolonged, incommunicado detention without judicial review; the transfer, return, extradition and expulsion of persons at risk of being subjected to torture; and the adoption of security measures that curtail the right to freedom of association and breach the principal of non-discrimination.

Those kids being infused with the idea that these soldiers are heroes are watching them like a US citizen kid woud watch his favourite player to see if he hits a homer. War is a dangerous sport, so if you are a fan that sits on the front line waiting to get martyred so the other kids can laugh and giggle at being splattered with your blood...you arent innocent you are playing with fire. What kind of people tells there kid they will go to heaven if they are martyred causing these kids to sit in the suicide seats in this politically not religiously motivated war for the tourist rights to the economy of Israel you sick dog?

The Gunman is hiding amongst the "innocent" hoping they and not he will take the retaliatory rounds of the return fire, hoping the death of the children made pawns would infuriate the west into their cause. He knows very well that his army is just as indiscriminate and targets the civilian sector...he wants his enemy to be held in the same evil light his character is deemed by.
Being you can read my brother is not enough, you must think as well. How can a Palestinian mother be detained from her route to the hospitol unless such violence is reeking havoc in the streets...you have killed her and her child yourself...may God show no mercy on your soul.

The Gunman is hiding amongst the "innocent" hoping they and not he will take the retaliatory rounds of the return fire, hoping the death of the children made pawns would infuriate the west into their cause. He knows very well that his army is just as indiscriminate and targets the civilian sector...he wants his enemy to be held in the same evil light his character is deemed by.

So Allah wants his hooded Islamic killers to hide among his own children so that it WILL LOOK LIKE those innocents he attacks will kill Arab children and look as barbaric as the Muslim Arabs.

While Israel's army targets those who kill their children and you want the IDF soldiers to appear to be indiscriminately killing Muslim children. Thats nice.......

Being you can read my brother is not enough, you must think as well. How can a Palestinian mother be detained from her route to the hospitol unless such violence is reeking havoc in the streets...you have killed her and her child yourself...may God show no mercy on your soul.

Apparently you haven't thought about anyting except stealing the land of the Jewish people without the aide of your brother Arab countries surrounding you.

And then you have the testicles to insinuate that detaining a Muslim mother and her child from going to a hospital laden with dyamite to kill even more innocent Jews is reeking havoc. May allah be broken into pieces. See your idol god Allah in all his glory.

You might think about taking your head out of your rectum and understand that Islam does not belong in the holy land of the Jewish people. If your Arab morther and child were not used as weapons, they would never be stopped from going anywhere.

Only after the intifada of your thieving leaders (Arafat and his corrupt cronies) did the Arab decide to follow these morons, give up their freedom, their life and work, food and health care to kill the Jews for Allah.

Muhammad truly wrote the Satanic verses as described by the Muslim Salman Rushdie.

Those kids being infused with the idea that these soldiers are heroes are watching them like a US citizen kid woud watch his favourite player to see if he hits a homer. War is a dangerous sport, so if you are a fan that sits on the front line waiting to get martyred so the other kids can laugh and giggle at being splattered with your blood...you arent innocent you are playing with fire. What kind of people tells there kid they will go to heaven if they are martyred causing these kids to sit in the suicide seats in this politically not religiously motivated war for the tourist rights to the economy of Israel you sick dog?

Those Islamic kids are being thrown into the fires of Allah the moon god like the Caananites that G-d told the Jews to destroy.
The Jews didn't do what the Almighty G-d told them to do and left some of these evil people live instead of being put to the sword. Now you have evil Islam that cries out to destroy humanity as a result.

May a pig eat your flesh....

The Satanic Qur'an itslef promises you martrys of Allah that you will have endless sinless sex with boys (as pure as pearls) to explore the little boys in pedophilic homosexuality.

QUR"AN

The Mount
52:23 They shall there exchange, one with another, a (loving) cup free of frivolity, free of all taint of SIN.

The Mount
52:24 Round about them will serve, (devoted) to them. Boys (handsome) as Pearls well-guarded.

The Mount
52:25 They will advance to each other, engaging in mutual enquiry.
===============================

Time, Man, (every) Man, This (day-and-)age
76:19 And round about them will (serve) BOYS of perpetual (freshness): If thou seest them, thou wouldst think them scattered Pearls.

Time, Man, (every) Man, This (day-and-)age
76:20 And when thou lookest, it is there thou wilt see a Bliss and a Realm Magnificent.

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